To Make Myself Lucky
by Emoosey
Summary: Following Hades' long-lasting quest to live in a more fortunate light after a peculiar conversation with Alice Roth. [Side fic to 'Accidental Tourist']


**To Make Myself Lucky**

 _Following Hades' long-lasting quest to live in a more fortunate light after a peculiar conversation with Alice Roth._

* * *

Alice Roth is an oddity. I call her that, for lack of a better word, because it is the simplest way I can encompass her personality (and the word does not even begin to do her justice). Then there is the added fact that I simply have not encountered anyone quite like her- someone who can be outlandish and whimsical and so very normal all at the same time. The human souls who grace my presence at the gate to the underworld are all very drab; they lament, they gripe about their misfortune, and after my time in the Garden (after my time with Alice Roth) I have come to the realisation that this has played a large role in the shaping of my personality over the enduring years. Alice Roth is not at all like these humans, quite the foil really, and on my more miserable days I have caught myself wondering if death would change that. Will she greet me with that bullish smile I have grown so fond of on the day she steps through to my domain? And even if she doesn't... I feel guilty for looking forward to that day.

I will be honest and say that the first time I saw her I didn't even spare her as much as a second glance. I was lurking in the shadows of a classroom, only recently transported to the Garden, and after recently seeing another girl go by (Yui) I didn't make much of the flutter of yellow hair passing by the door, much less the person it was attached to. But out of everything it was the brightness of that yellow (even if only slightly) that I noticed and it is something I continually, increasingly, notice every time I see her. Alice Roth is incredibly bright.

She meandered by not noticing me at all. So maybe it was something meaningful that I was the one to see her before she saw me. The second time I laid eyes upon Alice Roth was a much more theatrical (rather noticeable) affair. She burst in on my brother's autocratic spiel, shouting the most bizarre profanity, and interrupted any sense of potent atmosphere that he had been building. That, although interruption is not normally something I would commend people for, was quite the feat. Many of the gods snickered and tittered as she tried to shake the trail of toilet paper from her shoe but I was watching her yellow hair. It was scintillatingly flyaway.

To think such a person would take so great an interest in befriending me. It was alarming at first. I had barely conversed with the girl and then, for reasons unknown to me, she had become dead set on approaching me, going as far to launch herself upon me on the day of the Seaside School. I was not accepting of it at the time. I was... solitary. I had been for quite some time. But gradually I felt myself crawling out from the gloom, flinching and squinting in the new sun. I may have said to an extent that she reminded me of Apollon, but that would have been my assessment in the beginning. Soon enough I realised that was a very poor appraisal of Alice. She was nothing like my nephew, and surely if she knew I had thought of her so she would be exceptionally peeved. I feel she holds a minor grudge against him, possibly for the skin-deep qualities they share. She's like that— treating things of little consequence like they may destroy her world and the things that very may well destroy her like a joke. _Bizarre_ , but her.

Originally, I thought maybe her seemingly zealous wish to become my friend was a joke too. She was so droll about everything, satirical, playful, and somewhat flippant at times. How was I to know if she was not just being facetious about wanting closeness? It could have all been some intricate yarn she decided to spin with Tsukito, her partner in schemes. Yet, it wasn't, was it? I knew that after she told me about herself, when we were sat on the stone steps, eyes soaking up the sky. She had been watching me, with Tsukito, from the bushes before then; I had been aware of that for some time and it had been extremely uncomfortable. I felt her stare on the back of my head and it was all I could do to not visibly recoil, which would only further draw her interest further. Even so, she approached me after everyone else had left, despite my lack of response to her company, and strangely I continued on like that. I did not bolt.

Alice was different then. I felt the change almost instantaneously. She sat and did not flash me a daring grin as she so often had. Her cheer had been swapped for something sombre and suddenly I felt as if I was looking at my reflection.

"Once upon a time," She had said, "there was a shy little girl..."

It did not take an idiot to know who she talked of.

Introversion had rooted itself in the both of us then. I considered it, contemplative. It didn't seem like it should be the truth- she was so confident- but her words rang with sincerity. She told me she changed herself, she fashioned these eccentrics, shaped herself a new persona. I had to wonder at the time if that meant she was living a lie, but now that I look back upon her words, she was always Alice. In whatever form, Alice has always been Alice. She simply morphs through her smiles and frowns and wistful eyes, and that is all part of her capricious nature.

She told me of her first transformation, and in the authenticity of the tale she crafted I saw beauty. I felt taken aback and did not quite want to believe how she was resonating with me. _It wouldn't do to let her see its affect on me,_ they were some stupid thoughts of mine. This was because I still thought it best to remain reclusive. I certainly don't understand my logic today. I've gone through one too many metamorphoses to identify with my old self. And these remarkable changes began with something relatively simple, a question from the mind of Alice Roth: "...what's there to stop a god, who claims to cause bad luck, making himself lucky?"

 _To make myself lucky..._

"Do you understand what I am saying?" She stared at me with eyes blue and large and much too earnest. There were ideas in my mind falling into place after so long of floating aimlessly and the longer I looked at her the more I lost myself, or the more I lost my grounding with my ascetic-self would be better phrasing. The crust surrounding my core was crumbling and for a moment I liked it; it felt good. But then I became conscious of how exposed I felt all of a sudden. I closed right back up.

"I do not."

I shouldn't have been so hasty to shoot her down. Sometime later I came to regret it, but now I stand knowing I was lucky enough for it all to work out well enough anyway.

She had left a small piece of fortune in my system after that day, something I had contracted from meeting her eyes for a moment too long. _Then:_ it was an aggrievement that kept me up at night, tossing and turning and mulling it over until I could no longer think straight. _Now:_ it is my saving grace, my motto, a sweet hymn, something to be whispered until I fall into happy slumbers— _To make myself lucky, make myself lucky, make luck, luck, luck..._

 _I am lucky, Alice Roth._

* * *

 _Its so very interesting to me to see the differences between all the P.O.V. Just compare the way Alice views some of these moments to how Hades views them. Alice puts a comedic filter on everything. As it has been said, it's her coping method. She lives and breathes humour and wit. But then in Hades' perspective everything is both stripped down and built upon, and I don't know if that makes sense to anyone because I've clearly just made a contradicting remark._

 _Well, I hope you enjoy this while I struggle on with the next chapter for the main story._


End file.
